One Kind: Precursor
by El Spoot
Summary: Before a Keidran loved a Human there was no unity between the races. When Neutral struggled to preserve her children the Basitin Empires steadily rose. Back when the Elfin-folk who took Draconic forms believed themselves to be the true gods, a broken Statue, precursor to the Masks, had its Avatar discovered. Before Flora and Trace, there was the Neanderthal.


0-] One Kind [-0

By ash storms and an uprooted forest she landed, unseen to mortal eyes and quickly she leapt around an incomplete wicker wall of a neighboring splintered village. In the partially built hovel a young couple lay, comfort found in each other's arms, their love's scent still thick and warm, and she drew fingers of not-quite flesh over the sleeping woman's fur. There, about the waist, she felt something stir, and took another moment gently prodding about the abdomen to confirm her suspicion. Drawing back the unseen demigoddess pinched at the ghostly residue by her head, snapping free a fragment of her own mind to use for this new life. And the other hand swayed, collecting the wafting essence from the couples' souls, bringing it all together into a delicate pearl. That new consciousness she brought to the woman's navel, firmly pressing the spiritual piece until it phased into the growing womb, where the new child finally came to life.

Something else caught her golden eyes, at least what represented the form she desired to have, and on bare feet and clawed nails she leapt from the abode, landing deeper in the woods. There, beneath the disturbed soil, the ashes of a warrior. After glancing about to ensure no mortal life could still see her, she knelt by the grave and gave it a soft pat. The spirit was still strong, the soul having protected it from other greedy deities, and through grey lips she sighed in relief. By cupped fingers she guided the warrior from what remained of the body, the gifted soul and all of its acquired knowledge filtering back into her body, and the trembling spirit gleefully gazing onto his goddess.

She whispered to him, what he wished to become after having lived such a proud and accomplished life. To be reborn again, to merge with other fragments and spirits that had been the same mental cloth she cut from in creating his mind, or perhaps to rest a bit. The little spirit replied to her ears alone, and after nodding in agreement she brought the spirit to her head, where it faded into her mind to rest. Sadly, there were others like him scattered about, all ritualistically cremated and buried over several days. Some were of this tribe, coated red in life as the foxes she admired. Others were invaders, wolf-borne, her children in spirit yet so far different in blood between the racial siblings. That was why the rescued spirit trembled, the rest had been stolen away during the bloodshed, or perhaps lured from a demigoddess who would allow her children to wage war on each other.

Fingers curled in worry, feeling the various cloths of time and soul that could be woven again and again for life to be born, reborn and recreated. One trickled past her fingers, the black stain of Keidran who ran afoul with her, and she quickly waved it back to nothingness before the bitter threads and their nagging chatter became too much. These were not spirits she intended to bring back to life, despite the dire situation of the race she forged. No life to return and judge meant that she would be weakened again, and with an inward snarl she cursed the other demigods that stole her children away. At the very least she rescued one who had not fallen asleep and had been watching through her golden eyes. He, no, it was still afraid, but there was courage and a sense of duty. Knowing its goddess' pain, it called out and gave a new request. The demigoddess hesitated, and with a reluctant hand pulled the spirit back from her mind. The other hand rose, summoning another thread of life that had been once a kind poet, until being tortured to death by slavers. Both spirits were from the same cloth, broken apart to live two lives, and despite being emotionally drained both wrapped into each other, becoming one whole haunted yet defiant mind.

'Thank you,' she whispered to the new united mind, and crept back into the makeshift village. A widowed fox curled along in the only complete hovel did not feel the immortal hand that rolled her over, baring her abdomen to the new spirit. 'Protect your new mother,' and with another touch she filled the unborn child with life, the last gift from her soul mate.

The goddess frowned. So many had been stolen before she could reach them. So many lives ruined. This fox she knelt over had been a special one, her thread more solidified and independent, yet still faithful to the immortal mind. Several other threads had been woven countless times until the man in her life had been born, he too impossible to merge back with the cloth and likewise a powerful and ageless mind. They had meant to be, everything clicked, and she even whispered her blessings when the two were wed. The male fox had no faith in life, making him susceptible to another demigod's lies, and after the bloodshed his spirit had been whisked away to feed another.

She did not know how much longer that this could be kept up, weaving and reweaving life, replacing millions of spirits that were lost to limbo or worse, and all of the cloths pulled from her mind were becoming thread-bare. In the rules of balance, it was necessary for various spirits to merge into one complete mind, yet to do so required the right kind of entities. An emotionally broken race meant their recollected souls would empower her less. She would grow weaker, the mental cloths growing thinner, and in due time she would not be able to honor the universe's request to create more life. Births would be stillborn without spirits and souls, and it would be a spiritual collapse, not attrition of conflict, that would have her race becoming extinct. Without a race, she would wither as well, until another demigod could defeat and weave her into its macabre jacket. She did not want that fate, and neither did her children. Trillions of threads, woven into endless possibilities, yet the number that could exist at one time were limited to the success of her race.

These were her cloths, her threads, her spirits. No, these were her children. She turned towards the rough direction where the Basitin isles were, sensing unwilling Keidran, whether unborn or meant to be reincarnated, being fed into her sibling deity's maw. Broken, enslaved, reborn with so-called purpose, she snarled at that. These Basitin were poor forgeries, and the true god above only knew how hellish it must be to have your mind conscripted into a life that would be built around arousal through service. Yes, she had taken many extinct animals, from the great foxes to the primal tigers, weaving their broken threads into new minds and new life, but they had been driven to extinction and lost their respective deities to a mortal plague. The other demigoddess, the evil one, who lorded over so-called dragons, these monstrous spawn razed the jewel of Mekkan and manipulated the Keidran race into killing one another. She hissed at that thought, of how dragons devoured souls, and so many of her children were feeding the flames in their scaled guts.

Before leaving the village with the new harvest and planting, the goddess of neutrality felt a powerful emanation from a smoldering cave, her head snapping towards it as if without her doing. There the fighting had been thickest, viscera and limbs left about in neighboring chasms where the burial parties could not reach, and it seemed whoever manipulated the wolves this time had come close to breaching the entrance. Black mana haunted the area, kicking up a dust storm where the forest had been dissolved to a grey desert, making her tense and look to the sky when it felt that the air might split apart. With how strained and broken the village was, she understood why they did not flee the area. Bit by bit she crept to the cave, flickering briefly to phase through piled rock and landing face to face with a large soul crystal.

The goddess stepped back, an arm raised to shield her slumbering children, yet the object did not react as she expected it would. These haunted relics could sap spirit and soul alike into their nigh-indestructible prisons, as tools from some ancient war that cursed the planet before Dragon or Keidran walked the land. It glowed steadily, already filled with life, and peering closer she made out the outline of a fragment. She blinked. A god's fragment. An unborn avatar. That of a race even her immortal siblings were wary of. She looked about, studying the shadows staining the cavern walls. Had this been what the wolves were after? Had this been what her evil sibling nearly purged a defiant Keidran village over? Clearly so, but usually even the insane deities avoided the prison relics like the plague, these precursors to the modern mana crystals.

This was a powerful fragment within the confines. Already the sides began to split and leak pure essence into the cave. She swayed at the sudden high brought by the pure mana and had to lean against the wall until her immortal mind stopped swimming. Glancing up her eyes widened. There, a thread trapped against the crystal, a spirit of one of her children. Had this slumbering avatar somehow reached out to steal this spirit from whatever tried to claim it? Ignoring the logic of it being a trap, she quickly reached out and snatched it from one of the many hairline fractures. Cupped in protective palms, she stared at the warrior fox that left behind his soul mate.

* * *

Going back to the first true story I started working on a while back, it became clear how I've tried starting them just wasn't interesting enough. To my faithful readers who kept with me during my first foray into backstory writing, you may remember this story titled 'MineKinds', which was originally as a TwoKinds/Minecraft crossover. While I'm normally against OCs, this all just sort of fell together while I was thinking on my 'I Am Giant' story (which I swear, I'll get back to), and while I've been doing a lot of soul searching in my bumpy life. Reviews are immensely appreciated, and will help me develop a story readers will enjoy. Thank you for your time, and I apologize for re-posting within a day of my other failed idea.

As always I do not own the source material.


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